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Enrollment Policies

Student information for enrollment

The information you provide when you register, and maintain while you are enrolled, forms the basis of your Summer School student record. It includes your full legal name, gender, date of birth, e-mail address, current postal mailing address, and emergency contact information. You are responsible for the accuracy of this and all information you provide or another person provides on your behalf. Submission of fraudulent information is subject to review by the Administrative Board and may be grounds for disciplinary action.

Your biographical information

The name you provide when registering must match exactly the full legal name printed on your passport or other government-issued photo identification. Your Harvard ID card cannot be issued if the name in the Summer School system is different from the name on your government-issued photo ID.

Please check that your name and biographical information are correct in online services as soon as possible after registering. To report a legal name change, a birth date or Social Security number correction, or changes to gender or other biographical information, you must submit a biographical information changes form with required documentation, as described on the form.

Your contact information

You may view and update your contact information through online services at any time. Please keep your contact information current throughout your Summer School enrollment.

All critical school and course communications are sent via e-mail, so it is essential that you maintain an active e-mail address throughout your Summer School registration and enrollment. To protect the privacy and security of your student records, your e-mail address must be unique to you and not shared with any other person. Duplicate e-mail addresses will be inactivated.

As a Summer School student, you are eligible to create a unique Harvard e-mail account before classes begin. If you wish to receive Summer School communications via your Harvard e-mail account, please update your contact information in online services. Harvard e-mail accounts expire at the end of the session(s) for which you are registered.

Enrollment status

Eight credits constitutes full-time enrollment in Harvard Summer School. Four credits constitutes half-time enrollment. All study abroad programs are full time. If you are a Harvard Extension School degree candidate enrolled in a thesis or internship course, you are enrolled full time.

Calculations of enrollment status for enrollment certification and loan deferments are based on the above definitions and your total Summer School undergraduate and graduate credit enrollment. Enrollment status is not calculated separately for three-week sessions.

Courses with grades of excluded-from-course (EXD), required-to-withdraw (RQ), administrative withdrawal (WA), or withdrawal (WD) are not included in enrollment status calculations.

Maximum enrollment

Maximum credit enrollment for the Summer School is 8 credits.

Secondary School Program students

You may enroll only in seven-week session courses that have been approved for your program. If you are a residential student, you must be enrolled in 8 credits, the Summer School maximum. Students who attend as commuters or distance learners may enroll for either 4 or 8 undergraduate credits.

General program students

You may enroll in seven-week session courses or three-week session courses up to the credit enrollment maximums listed below. You may enroll in both three-week sessions, but you may not enroll in both seven-week and three-week session courses. The maximum credit enrollment for each session is as follows:

8 credits in the seven-week session

4 credits in three-week session I

4 credits in three-week session II

General Program students may enroll with noncredit status in one 4-credit course beyond the maximum.

Maximum enrollment policies

During registration, you may register for up to 4 credits beyond the maximum, including courses in which your status is waitlisted or pending prerequisite review. By May 18, you must drop any credit courses over the maximum for your session, or you will be dropped by the Registrar. Exceptions to this policy are made only if your course overload is balanced by waitlist or pending review status in one or more courses, or if you are a Harvard University degree candidate with your school’s approval for a course overload. See Harvard College Academic Credit.

I-20 certificates of eligibility for the F-1 student visa are issued only to students who are enrolled in the maximum number of credits for their session, in addition to meeting all other I-20 requirements. See Visa and I-20 Guidelines.

Time conflicts

You may not be enrolled in courses that meet at the same or overlapping times unless at least one of the courses is also offered online and is not a web-conference course.

If you register for courses with time conflicts, you must drop one or more of the conflicting courses by May 18, or you will be dropped from those courses by the Registrar. Exceptions to this policy are only if the time conflict includes one or more courses in which you are waitlisted or pending prerequisite review.

Summer School right to refuse registration

The Summer School may refuse registration to a person who has been required to withdraw from another Harvard school or course, officially ordered to stay away from the Harvard campus, found responsible for a disciplinary violation at another educational institution, or adjudicated guilty or convicted of a misdemeanor, felony, or other crime.

US economic sanctions on embargoed countries

If you are generally resident in the Crimean region of Ukraine, please contact the Registrar (registrar@dcemail.harvard.edu) about enrolling in online courses.